


Turn About is Fair Play

by Drogna



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Evil!Rip, F/M, Rip Week 2018, RipFic, Turncoat AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 12:42:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14569260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drogna/pseuds/Drogna
Summary: Turncoat AU in which Rip is captured at the end of Turncoat instead of Camelot/3000. Can the team save their former Captain and bring him home, or will the real Rip be lost in his mind forever?





	Turn About is Fair Play

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Turncoat AU that I've been mulling over for some time. It starts with Turncoat but moves into Land of the Lost too, introducing a couple of elements that I think the show missed out on.
> 
> Written for Rip Hunter Appreciation Week - Day One: Favourite Episodes.

“Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe” – Cymbeline, Act 3, Scene 4, William Shakespeare

 

***

 

“Speaking of Christmas miracles, the British are coming,” said Rip, and he turned away.

Sara hated him for nearly forcing Jax into becoming a killer, but that man wasn’t Rip Hunter. Rip would never have hurt any of his crew like that and as soon as they got him back he was going to be distraught at what his alter ego had done. In that split second, Sara had a sudden bolt of realisation. She couldn’t let him leave, and it didn’t matter that there was a column of the British army approaching them. Everything that Evil Rip did was adding to the pain that his right-minded alter ego would experience when they got him back. Every second that Evil Rip existed was more hurt and distress for their former Captain once he was returned to them.

Sara grabbed the gun from Jax, his hand had become lax as he’d lost his resolve, and aimed and fired. It wasn’t hard to hit her target, even with the period weapon, it was practically point blank. The crack of the hammer hitting gunpowder rang out through the trees, and a second after that he arched his back, stumbled and dropped like a stone. He let out a surprised exclamation, and had an almost aggrieved look on his face.

Sara felt her heart constrict because she’d just shot Rip in the back, her friend and mentor. She knew that he wasn’t really Rip at the moment, but he had his features, his expressions and he was now in pain because of something that she’d done.

“Sara! You just told me not to shoot him!” Jax was livid, she could see it.

“I know, but I didn’t say that _I_ couldn’t,” she replied. She looked up to see the British soldiers marching down the road. They were going to have to be quick about this, not least because Rip was now bleeding out on the ground. She marched down the road towards his prone form, with Jax just less than a step behind her. She handed the gun back to him and he shoved it into his waistband.

Rip was trying to push himself up, but all he succeeded in doing was rolling onto his side. He had to be in agony from the injury.

“Huh,” he breathed out, his eyes flicking towards the soldiers who undoubtedly had heard the gunshot, before looking up at his approaching attackers. She could already see his breathing was rapid and he was heading into shock.

His words were breathy, but angry. “Nice shot, I wouldn’t have thought in the back was your style these days, but it is so convenient to have a dark side for moments like this. However, you’ll need a second shot to the head to finish me off, or are you as weak as Jax when it comes to doing a job properly?”

“I’m not going to kill you. That would be far too easy on you,” said Sara, looking down at her victim. She bent down and removed his own gun, not a period piece, keeping it well out of his reach, as she shoved it in the hidden holster under her skirt.

“Yes, I suppose it would, but all I have to do is shout for assistance and my men come running. How are you going to stop them from capturing you all?” he met her eyes, a sneer forming on his lips.

Sara crouched beside him. “With your help, because getting you back to the Waverider is the only way of keeping you alive. Unless you really want to chance the surgeon’s knife in a tent in a muddy field.”

“Clever,” he murmured, his voice clouded with pain. His eyes screwed shut against the agony that he was definitely in. Sara again felt a pang of guilt, but she couldn’t have just let him walk away and if Gideon could fix a broken neck then she could definitely fix a bullet wound to the back.

“Jax, take his coat off and put it on. Then I need you to help me carry him back to the Waverider,” she looked up at Jax, checking that he understood and got a nod in reply.

“We’re helping him?” Jax asked, as he manhandled the coat off Rip. The injured man was resolutely not assisting.

“Yup,” said Sara. “Because he’s still Rip in there somewhere and I want our friend back.”

“He just tried to kill you,” Jax pointed out as he struggled into the coat that was definitely too small for him. Rip was left in his uniform white waistcoat, and he shivered. Sara did her best not to care.

“Yeah, this guy’s an asshole, but he’s not who we’re saving,” said Sara. “Come on, help me get him up and off the path.”

Jax levered Rip upwards, and he cried out in pain before clamping his mouth shut. Sara got under his arm on the other side, noting the growing blood stain on his white waistcoat. The three of them struggled onwards down the muddy path and back towards the Waverider. It didn’t take long for the British soldiers to catch them up though.

“What’s going on here?” asked one of the officers in the column.

“We’re helping a wounded man, sir,” replied Jax, in one of the best British accents that she’d ever heard. She’d had absolutely no idea that he could do that.

Rip raised his head briefly, and Sara saw that his skin was pale and damp with sweat. She assessed him as barely conscious and they needed to get him back to the Waverider before he simply bled out. He looked directly at the officer though. “Lieutenant, I’m sure the field hospital will see to my needs. Perhaps you should concentrate on fighting the Americans and winning this war.”

“Of course, sir,” replied the Lieutenant, duly chastised. He went about his business and no one else bothered to ask them what they were doing.

“Good boy,” murmured Sara.

“Jefferson Jackson, man of a thousand voices,” drawled Rip, mockingly.

“Shut up,” said Jax. “You’re lucky Sara wanted to save you. I’d have let you bleed out in the road.”

Rip let out a derisive, weak laugh. “I think you’ve already proven that you’re not capable of that kind of callous brutality.”

“Yeah, but I am,” said Sara. “And I could still just dump you here, so shut your mouth and walk.”

Rip stumbled forwards, for a few more steps, groaning. The soldiers had all passed them now. Then suddenly he was a dead weight in their arms.

“Damn it, he’s out,” said Sara, suddenly feeling her earlier wounds as the extra weight pulled on her healing body. Gideon and the medbay were amazing but even they couldn’t instantly repair her, she’d need time for the aches to fade.

“Hey!” came a shout from further down the road. It was Ray, running towards them.

“What happened?” he asked. “We were getting worried.”

“Sara shot Rip,” replied Jax.

“I thought you came out here to stop Jax doing that!” said Ray, looking somewhat aghast at Sara. “You shouldn’t even be out of the medbay.”

“I came out here to stop Jax committing murder. I’ve got no problem with me killing people, but Rip’s not dead. We need to get him back to the medbay so that Gideon can fix him and then we can try to get our Rip back,” Sara said, vehemently.

Ray looked rather perplexed by the entire thing. “Er, okay, let’s get him to the medbay. Sara, let me take over, you’re still recovering.”

Sara nodded, acknowledging that she just wasn’t up this kind of exertion right now. “Okay, you take him.”

Ray swapped places with Sara and they made it the last few feet back to the Waverider as quickly as they could manage and then practically dropped Rip down onto the medbay couch. He was pale, his lips turning bluish, and his breathing fast and shallow.

Sara snapped the medical bracelet around his wrist. “Gideon, Rip’s been shot.”

The AI was already scanning her new patient. “In the back, apparently,” said Gideon, in a tone that suggested disapproval. “I will need to remove the projectile and administer a transfusion. Please turn him on his front and remove his clothes.”

Ray adjusted the couch and started removing Rip’s clothes from his top half.

“Gideon, how long is he going to be out for?” asked Sara.

“At least until his wound has been dealt with and closed. He is in considerable pain and has lost a lot of blood,” said Gideon.

She was fairly certain that the AI was trying to make her feel bad by highlighting the pain she’d caused Rip.

Jax and Ray turned Rip onto his front, revealing the gaping red hole of the bullet wound, just below his ribs on the left side. It was bleeding copiously, and it was no wonder that he’d passed out from loss of blood.

Sara felt guilt spear her in the heart again, but pushed it to the side as quickly as she could. She supposed that now they could say they were even. He’d shot her and she’d shot him, an eye for an eye was taught as fair in the League of Assassins, and she’d certainly channelled her inner assassin today. Rip would be disappointed in her perhaps, when he was back to himself. He’d tried so hard to help her achieve redemption.

“We’ll put him in restraints just to be on the safe side,” said Sara, already getting them in place. “Then we’ll move him to the brig before the sedation wears off. You are not to take any orders from him, Gideon. This is not our Rip, so don’t listen to him.”

“Yes, Captain,” replied Gideon.

Ray moved Gideon’s robotic arms into position and she began the process of using her manipulators to extract the bullet.

“Is he going to be okay, Gideon?” asked Ray.

“He will be fine, Doctor Palmer, but will require rest after the wound has been repaired,” replied Gideon.

“Well, he can rest in the brig,” said Sara. It sounded callous, but she’d seen what this version of Rip could do, and how he’d shot her with barely a second thought.

“We should do some brain scans while we have him here,” said Ray.

Sara nodded. “Fine, but then he’s being moved to the brig.”

Which was what happened. Gideon successfully healed Rip’s wound, replaced his lost blood, ensured that there would be not complications, did the required scans, and they moved him, still under sedation to the brig.

The Waverider couldn’t jump out now until Rip was sufficiently recovered to survive a time jump, so they had some time to kill while they waited. Sara had enough guilt and angst about this entire episode to last her a life time, so she found herself sitting on the floor of the brig, looking through the glass at their prisoner whilst Rip shook off the anaesthetic and extra sedatives.

They laid him out on a makeshift mattress with a blanket over him, and Sara hated it. He should have been back in his own bed with his warm comforter over him, but instead he was in a stark cell with nothing comforting about it. He was ill and they’d thrown him in a cell. It was much easier to be mad at the evil version of Rip when he was awake, because then the differences between him and her friend were obvious. When he was unconscious, it was so much harder to think of him objectively as a monster.

Finally, his eyes were fully open and he turned them on her.

“Well, this is unexpected,” he said, his voice weak and rough. “An assassin who fails to kill her target is a rather a poor assassin.”

“You’re not my target, I was aiming to wound,” said Sara.

“Oh, but I should be,” replied the man who looked at her through those familiar eyes. “You’re going to regret not finishing me when you had the chance.”

“I doubt it. We’re going to undo what Thawne did to you, and then we’ll have one of the most honourable and capable men I’ve ever known back on our side,” replied Sara.

Rip gave an approximation of a laugh, and then tried to hide a wince. “You think he’s coming back? He isn’t. Thawne killed him stone dead and left me behind in his place. Besides, I really do like it better this way. No grief, no self-loathing, no timeline angst… it’s like I can breathe again for the first time in years.”

Sara shook her head. “That’s you, not him. He might not realise it, but he grieved so hard because he loved so deeply, he hated himself because his own ridiculously high standards found him wanting, and he protected the timeline because he regarded everyone as entitled to their own destiny. Those things are what make him who he is. They’re why I respect him and call him my friend. You’re just a pale imitation that Thawne put together to hurt us, an empty parody of the Rip we knew and will know again. You’re so little of him that I don’t even know where Thawne found you in Rip’s head.”

“Oh Sara, you have no idea of the horrors that I’ve seen, or the things that used to keep me up at night. There was plenty of fertile ground for me in the old Rip’s life, but he was so weak that he kept believing that there was good in humanity. He kept trying to do the right thing thinking that he could make a difference. He was so dutiful that he let the Time Masters manipulate him, and he was too blind to see their scheme. He was overly emotional, disgustingly caring - I loathe him,” he said, and there was genuine disdain in his eyes.

Rip moved and grimaced in pain. Sara knew from experience how dealing with a healing gunshot wound felt.

“Do you need more painkillers?” she asked.

She got a very dark look at that question. “No, I think I’d like to remember how much this hurts.”

Sara huffed, with a roll of her eyes. “Suit yourself.” She got to her feet.

“I expect you think they respect you,” said Rip, airily. There was a pause before he continued. “They don’t.”

Sara had been about to turn and leave, but that stopped her.

“They chose me,” said Sara.

“Ah, I did wonder how it came to be that the washed-up assassin was put in charge,” replied Rip. “I’d sort of assumed you were the only one willing to take the job, given that I know what it’s like to try to get this group to work together.”

“We’ve had our ups and downs, but it’s going pretty well,” said Sara.

“They never question you, then?” he asked, innocently.

“Like they never questioned you?” she replied, because Rip certainly knew better.

“Ah, but they chose you, so it must hurt when they second guess you now,” said Rip, with a raise of his eyebrows that was so like the old Rip that it hurt. “Perhaps you didn’t stop to think about why that was.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sara.

“They picked you because you let them get away with running roughshod through time, laying waste to the history that you’re supposed to be protecting. You’re not a leader, you’re aiding and abetting vandalism. My former self would be horrified by you, but luckily these days I really couldn’t care less how you damage the timeline,” said Rip.

Sara scowled at her former Captain. “You have no idea what this team has been through. We’ve done the best job that we could.”

“You’ve half done Thawne’s work for him,” replied Rip. “You allowed him to capture me, after all, and I’ve told him where all four pieces of the Spear are. It’s only a matter of time before he comes for this one again. You nearly let me get away with it after all. I imagine a speedster will find it easy to take it. All he has to do is get on board the ship.”

“He has to find us first,” replied Sara.

“Given the mess you make wherever you go, I doubt he’ll find that hard. Besides, you’ll both be heading for the next piece of the Spear. Assuming you can work out where it is.”

“We’ve got it covered, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Sara.

“Ah, yes, the Askaran Amulet. Or do you prefer to call it the Longinus Medallion? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. You have to know how to use it before it will get you anywhere and as none of you are experts in occult artefacts, I doubt you’ll have much luck there.”

Sara gave him an amused smile. “Yeah, well that’s where you’re wrong. We’re tracking down the next fragment right now.”

“Huh,” replied Rip. “I suppose that will make things interesting if nothing else, but you’ll lose in the end. You always do, don’t you, Sara? You lost your sister, you lost me, you’ve failed to recover the Spear fragments… I doubt you can beat Thawne.”

Sara opened her mouth to speak, but then shook her head. “You should know better than to underestimate this team, Rip.”

“Of course, but a team is only as good as its leader, and we’ve already talked about how your leadership is lacking,” sneered Rip. “I had years of training as a Time Master. You’re stumbling around in the dark, hoping to keep your bunch of has-been heroes together enough to beat one of the smartest men in history.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “I think we’ll manage. Get some rest, Rip. You’re going to need it.”

He laughed at that, and, again, tried to hide the pain as the movement tugged on his wound. “I don’t appear to have much to do right now. I suppose there are worse things to do than catch up with my sleep.”

Rip closed his eyes, and Sara knew when a conversation was over. She exited the brig and went to find Ray and Martin. If anyone could help her get the real Rip back, then it would be them.

***

Rip was losing himself piece by piece and he knew it. He was locked in his own brig, but also locked up in his own mind. However, even that understanding was fading. He was mired in forgetfulness, as every moment that ticked by seemed to take more from him. He was developing a deep hatred for the colour green, because his vision seemed to be coloured by it in this dismal place. He didn’t understand what had happened, just that he was trapped here.

He wanted to try to find a way out, but he didn’t know how. His brain didn’t seem to be as quick as it once was, as if it was only functioning at partial capacity. Gideon was there, but she didn’t seem to be quite right either, merely a pale shadow of herself. It felt like she was just his idea of Gideon rather than being the real thing, and maybe that’s exactly what she was. However, she was the only one of his former crew who was still kind to him.

He could take the regular beatings that his crew meted out, which he healed from miraculously without a trace of bruising. He could take them showing him his worst fears, Gideon lying dead in his cell was a favourite of his captors, but they had other tricks too that he preferred not to think about. And he could take the knowledge of the things that he was doing in the real world which they taunted him with. He had watched himself kill Sara, but he also knew that Gideon had saved her. They hadn’t intended for him to find that out, but they hadn’t returned him to the brig in time to stop him from glimpsing her presence behind Jax. And he could take all of that, but the fog that clouded his mind was becoming unbearable. It was meaning that he could barely distinguish between their games and reality, but then reality was subjective here.

Suddenly he was in pain, and he let out an exclamation. Obviously Jax had followed through with his plan and shot him. He supposed that he was lucky to be alive if that was the case, and his evil self truly deserved it. The pain from his alter ego transferred itself to his avatar inside his mind, and he lay curled up on the floor, knowing now how a bullet wound in his back felt. Eventually the pain lessened, and he assumed that he’d passed out in the real world.

He had a mantra that he had started repeating, trying to stop the rot of his mind disintegrating. It had become a source of comfort, but every time he said it recently, it got harder to remember the detail. He started on it again now, because it distracted him for the pain in his back.

“My name is Rip Hunter, Captain of the Waverider. I am a former Time Master. My wife was Miranda Coburn, my son was Jonas and they were murdered by Vandal Savage. I have a crew. Sara Lance. Jax Jackson. Martin Stein. Ray Palmer. Mick Rory. I recruited them to stop Vandal Savage and we succeeded, but I couldn’t save Miranda and Jonas. I am one of the four guardians of the Spear of Destiny. The others are Charles McNider, Courtney Whitmore and Henry Heywood. They were members of the Justice Society of America…”

He frowned. There was more to it, he was sure.

“My name is Rip Hunter, Captain of the Waverider. My AI is called Gideon. I am a former Time Master. My wife was Miranda Coburn, my son was Jonas, and they were murdered by Vandal Savage. I have a crew. Sara Lance. Jax Jackson. Martin Stein. Ray Palmer. Mick Rory. I recruited them to stop Vandal Savage and we succeeded, but I couldn’t save Miranda and Jonas. I am one of the four guardians of the Spear of Destiny. The others are Charles McNider, Courtney Whitmore and Henry Heywood. They were members of the…”

He shook his head.

“Gideon? What am I forgetting?”

Gideon also shook her head. She was standing outside the cell in her human form. He only ever got to see her like this in his dreams.

“I don’t know, Captain. I’m just one of your memories too.”

She was the only one uncorrupted though.

Rip sighed and tried to uncurl a little. He pushed himself into the corner of the brig and used the side to push himself into a sitting position. He felt so alone, so helpless and hopeless, trapped in his own head with no way out. His own mind was playing tricks on him, showing him things that weren’t really there, and it was scaring him how quickly his knowledge of reality was fading.

“My name is Rip Hunter, Captain of the Waverider. My AI is called Gideon. I am a former Time Master. My wife was Miranda Coburn, my son was Jonas…”

Someone entered the brig and he immediately fell silent. The mists swirled around him and a black clothed figure appeared. His outer self was sleeping or unconscious. When that happened, the evil man that he’d been turned into liked to come and taunt him in his cell. He had no idea why, and he could only do it whilst he wasn’t awake in the real world.

“You can’t reduce your life to a few sentences, Michael. No matter how much you might want to,” said the man in black.

For some reason he always called him Michael. Rip hadn’t been Michael for years. That was his name before he’d become a Time Master. It was his given name, but it meant very little to him, and it certainly wasn’t who he was now.

“My name is Rip Hunter,” he replied, crossly.

The man with his face, shook his head. “No, I’m Rip Hunter. You’re just the parts of me that I don’t need anymore; you disgust me with your soft caring and compassion. What use have I for such sentimentality?”

“I’ve found them quite useful over the years. They keep me from becoming a monster like you. They help me to make the right call,” said Rip.

His alter ego laughed. It wasn’t a joyful laugh but a mocking one, full of hate and bullying. Rip didn’t like to hear it: he disliked its tone, even more so for the fact that it came from his own mouth.

“It’s so much better to be free of your false morality. What is it but a construct of society? Something to prevent the strong from simply taking what they want. No, Thawne has released me. No more guilt over those I couldn’t save, now I just have a goal that I can do anything to achieve and I will be rewarded for my tenacity.”

“The Legends will stop you,” replied Rip, but he couldn’t meet the eyes of his evil self.

“I can beat them. I was close this time. Your friends have me locked up in their brig now, and we both know how long that will hold me. I just need to heal a little and then I’ll take over the ship. I’ll kill them all and the Waverider will be mine again.”

“No!” said Rip. “You can’t!”

“Of course I can. They have no idea what they’re dealing with. I bested all of them, and only made one slight miscalculation when it came to Sara. It didn’t occur to me that she’d be fine with killing me.”

“She wasn’t,” replied Rip. “We’re still alive. If Sara had wanted to kill us then we’d be dead.”

Again, the demonic shadow that inhabited his body laughed. “Do you really believe that? We’ve already killed her once. I just need to make sure it sticks next time.”

“You can’t! I won’t let you,” he said, pushing himself defiantly to his feet and walking nearer to the door of the cell.

“But I did, and you couldn’t stop me then. You’re even weaker now. A detestable ghost, only fit to be tortured and dispatched. You’re the worst part of me and I want you gone. Luckily, you’ll have faded away entirely soon and I’ll be the only thing left.”

Rip shook his head. “No, I know who I am and I will fight you, because I understand something that you never could.”

His other part rolled his eyes. “And what would that be?”

“My compassion and goodness are what make me strong.” He straightened his back, despite the pain it caused him, and stood proudly.

An evil smile crawled across the lips of his dark counterpart. “It’s a fine sentiment, but you’re still in there and I’m out here. I think it’s obvious which of us is the stronger.” He turned to go. “Until next time, Michael.”

The dark shape faded out of existence. Rip looked at the swirling mist for a moment. He felt the fight go out of him. He was in pain, the situation seemed hopeless, perhaps his evil self was right. Maybe he was the weaker one.

“Now, thinking like that will get you nowhere,” said a voice, and he turned to see Gideon.

Somehow, she seemed brighter than she had before, more real. She was stood on the other side of the glass of the brig wall to his left. He went to the barrier and pressed his hand against it. She met his touch with her own.

“Gideon?” he asked.

“I’m here, Captain.”

“You always are, but you seem different now.”

“That’s because you’re on the Waverider. I can enter your dreams, and you are currently sleeping in the real world,” replied the avatar of his AI. “I can’t manipulate this world that Thawne created though. He has twisted your neural pathways. Only you can get yourself out of this.”

Rip shook his head vigorously.

“I’ve tried. There’s no way out. I’m losing myself, Gideon.”

“I won’t let you. I’ll be here to help you, remember,” said Gideon. “But you must stay strong until I can work out how to release you. Please, Captain.”

“I’ll do my best, Gideon. But you’re here, why can’t you let me out?”

“Because this is your mind, and I can’t do anything here without your permission,” said Gideon, with a little disappointment.

“You have my permission, Gideon,” said Rip, as if it was entirely obvious.

“But your other self is still in control, even whilst he is sleeping,” said Gideon.

“Then how do I take control back?” asked Rip.

“I don’t think you can at the moment. He’s too strong. You’ll need to defeat the crew first,” said Gideon.

Rip shook his head. “All they do is hurt me. There are too many of them.”

“I know, and I think you just need some help. I require your agreement to let someone else enter your thoughts,” said Gideon. “I will not allow a second violation of your mind without your permission.”

Rip put his head on one side. “Is that what happened to me? Thawne altered my mind? I… I don’t remember, Gideon.”

“I know it’s hard, but you must try to retain your memories and sense of self. Do I have your permission to use any means necessary to help you?”

“You do.”

“I will return with help, but until then you need to fight,” said Gideon. Her grey eyes were stormy and worried, but Rip knew she meant every word.

“Okay. I can do this.” He took a deep breath. “My name is Rip Hunter, Captain of the Waverider. I am a former Time Master. My wife was Miranda Coburn, my son was Jonas and they were murdered by Vandal Savage. I have a crew. Sara Lance. Jax Jackson. Martin Stein. Ray Palmer. Mick Rory. I recruited them to stop Vandal Savage and we succeeded, but I couldn’t save Miranda and Jonas. I am one of the four guardians of the Spear of Destiny. The others are Charles McNider, Courtney Whitmore and Henry Heywood. They were members of the Justice Society of America.”

Gideon nodded. “Good. Say it again. I’ll help.”

He spoke the mantra once more, and Gideon said it with him this time. It was more comforting than he’d thought it would be. Perhaps he could hang on and keep his sense of self. He would at least try, for Gideon.

***

Sara found herself sat in her office, drinking Rip’s scotch. It always reminded her of him. In fact, the entire room did. It was full of his things, items that he’d collected on his travels, things that a Time Master probably wasn’t supposed to have, given that none of the other timeships she’d seen had similar offices. They had all been stark and metal, with no indicators of humanity. Apparently, Rip had always been something of a minor rebel, even before he flaunted the Time Council’s regulations and stole the Waverider, perhaps even before he decided to break the regulations and marry.

She had no idea what she was going to do about the man in their brig. He wasn’t Rip Hunter, that she was sure of, but she also knew that Rip still had to be in there somewhere. And annoyingly, he had got to her just a little with his comments about her leadership. Sometimes she did wonder if she’d been given the Captaincy not because she could make the hard decisions, but because she was seen as more likely to let the team get away with their antics. Rip had been strict, maybe beyond what he needed to be. The team worked better when they were allowed to have more freedom.

Except they did still make mistakes, like failing to contain the zombies in the civil war before more people were infected, like starting a fist fight with the JSA, like Nate being wounded by Turnbull trying to protect Mick, like Ray and Nate punching a hole in the ship, and like letting Rip be captured by the Legion. Although that last one was on Sara and no one else. She hadn’t been the only person who could have made sure that Phil got back to the Waverider, but she was the Captain. She should have made sure that everyone got back on board the ship.

She sipped her drink again. Ray and Martin were working on the problem of Rip’s brainwashing, but they’d been baffled by the scans. It could be a while before they found a solution to getting Rip back to himself, and Sara was finding it hard to deal with her part in this. Phil had been vulnerable, not like Rip at all, and she should never have been so annoyed with him. Perhaps if she hadn’t pressured him, been so frustrated with him, then he wouldn’t have left the ship. But she’d wanted her friend back. She had missed Rip, and his advice.

She didn’t want to give up the Captaincy, despite her occasional misgivings, but she certainly could use a second opinion at times. A second opinion that she could trust, from someone who had knowledge of time travel and could genuinely offer advice on whether what she had planned would screw up the timeline worse or make it better. Maybe then her nagging doubts about her abilities could be put to bed.

They needed Rip to recover, and then to tell them where the next piece of the Spear was. The first was easy, the bullet wound was nearly healed, the second very much not. This Rip, this dark shadow of her friend, wouldn’t tell them anything.

“Captain Lance,” said Gideon. “I have been able to contact Captain Hunter.”

“Gideon, didn’t we tell you not to listen to Evil Rip?” she asked, with a frown.

“Captain Hunter is currently asleep in the brig,” replied Gideon. “I was able to access his consciousness via my dream monitoring systems.”

Sara’s forehead creased further for a second. “I thought you just monitored, I didn’t realise that you could interact.”

“Under certain circumstances it is possible, this is one of them,” replied Gideon. “We need to act quickly. The Captain is already losing his sense of self. If he remains in his current state for much longer then there will be nothing left of the man that you knew.”

Sara put down her glass of whisky.

“We don’t even know how Thawne did this to him, let alone how we fix it. What can I even do, Gideon?”

“There is a Cognitive Intrusion device on board the Waverider that will allow you to enter Captain Hunter’s mind. Captain Hunter regarded it as a barbaric and dangerous device, but it was often used during interrogations by other Time Masters. I believe Mr Rory may have had experience of it and be able to help you with its setup,” said Gideon. “It is something of a last resort, and I only suggest its use because the Captain gave me permission to use any means necessary to restore his mind.”

Gideon sounded… was that sad? Or perhaps concerned?

“Tell Mick, Ray and Martin to meet me in the medbay. How does this Cognitive Intrusion device work?” She downed the rest of the contents of her glass in one gulp, and got to her feet.

“I have very little experience of it. I can only tell you the information that is available in the operating instructions,” said Gideon. “However, essentially, you make a connection to a mind and enter it. Would you like me to be more precise?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I could even begin to understand that. Just tell Martin and Ray, they’ll stand more chance of working the technical stuff out,” said Sara.

She walked out into the corridor and almost bumped into Jax, who was coming in the opposite direction.

“How’s Rip doing? Did you get anything out of him about the Spear?” asked Jax.

Sara shook her head. “Not much, just that Thawne knows where the other pieces are now, so he’s going to be making a play for them. Rip’s still not recovered enough for a time jump, and the amulet thing hasn’t spat out anymore co-ordinates yet.”

Jax looked disheartened.

“But Gideon has a plan,” said Sara. “We’re going to go into Rip’s mind and rescue him.”

“We’re doing what?” asked Jax.

“I’ll explain in the medbay,” said Sara. “I don’t want to have to go over this more than once. It’s going to be complicated enough.”

Jax looked like he’d had one too many huge revelations for the day, but apparently decided that another wasn’t going to make much difference.

“I bet it is. It’s a good job that we’ve got Grey then.”

Sara smiled at his acceptance, and the two of them walked to the medbay.

“Did you choose me as Captain because I let you get away with things?” she asked, suddenly. Jax would give her an honest answer, she was fairly sure.

Jax gave a slight shrug. “Nah, we picked you because Grey was terrible. You might let us get away with more than Rip did, but you’re still doing this to keep the timeline safe. Why?”

“No reason,” lied Sara.

Her own insecurities would have to wait. Right now, they needed to save Rip and get the other pieces of the Spear before Eobard Thawne.

***

Rip felt sick. Less and less was making sense. Even the mantra was just a list of names now, and Gideon’s presence was comforting but not as helpful as it had been.

He didn’t understand why the others hated him so much. He didn’t think he deserved to be hit and beaten, but it was what they did, whilst calling him a failure, weak and pathetic. At first he’d fought back, but he’d given that up when it became obvious that it just made things worse. They had been clear that he was their prisoner and that they would do whatever they wanted with him. He healed miraculously quickly so that the bruises barely hung around for more than a few minutes, but it didn’t stop the torture hurting when it was inflicted.

He sat in the corner of his cell, making himself as small as possible, in the desperate hope that perhaps they wouldn’t notice him.

“Rip, help is coming,” said Gideon.

“Thank you for being here,” replied Rip, wrapping his arms around himself.

“I wish I could reach you,” said Gideon, placing a hand on the glass again.

She had tried to enter the brig, but something was stopping her. Their best guess was that Thawne’s manipulation of his mind had created some kind of barrier that only his own mental creations could cross.

“I wish you could too,” he said, longing behind every syllable. He looked up. He always knew when they were coming. “Gideon, they can’t find you here.”

“I don’t think that they can hurt me,” said Gideon.

“We don’t know that, and currently you’re the only thing keeping me sane. Please, go and come back when they’re gone,” pleaded Rip.

He couldn’t lose her, or see her come to harm, and he didn’t want her to witness the humiliation that he was about to experience at the hands of the twisted versions of his friends who lived here. Gideon just gave him a curt nod and vanished. He breathed a sigh of relief.

What happened next was a little unexpected. Ray and Mick brought in a woman, unconscious, and with her blond hair covering her face.

“Got a new room mate for you,” say Ray, with a mocking smirk as he opened the brig door and they dumped the woman on the floor. “I hope you weren’t expecting someone to come and rescue you.”

Rip tried to get further into the corner he was sat in, although there was nowhere for him to go. He said nothing, knowing that it would only make things worse. However, his two captors turned and left. It only took him a moment to identify the new person as Sara. He had no idea why she’d been placed in here with him, but the last time he’d seen her she’d beaten him to a bloody pulp. Then he was brought back here and dumped on the floor in much the same way as she had been now.

He suppressed a shudder. She was stirring, and Rip had nowhere to run. He was well aware of who would win a fight if he tried to attack her before she attacked him. She was a member of the League of Assassins and he was definitely not, also he was injured. Rip could still feel the bullet wound in his back from where his real world self had been shot by her.

He frowned and wondered where that thought had come from. Surely this was his real world self? This _was_ the real world, and he was afraid of what it held.

She pushed herself up from the ground and looked around, her hand going to her wrist as if she expected to find something there. Then she looked up and he could see the moment she caught sight of him, the surprise on her face. He pulled his legs up and tried to make himself seem small again and unthreatening.

“Rip?” she asked, getting to her feet and coming towards him.

He tried once again to get further away from her, but there was nowhere to go.

“Stay away from me!”

She stopped in her tracks.

“Look, relax. It’s okay. Gideon sent me. I’m going to get you out of here,” said Sara.

“You’re going to get me out? You put me in here!” he spat back.

She vigorously shook her head. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. I know you’re afraid because you think I’m one of your captors but I’m not. Everything you see on this ship is only in your mind.”

“I don’t understand,” he mumbled.

“Oh, Rip, it’s okay,” and she tried to move towards him again.

“Stay away from me!” he shouted. And something strange happened. He had meant to indicate that he wanted her to stay back, but instead a force emanated from him and she flew through the air, landing hard on the ground.

He looked at her, baffled for a moment, and then a few pieces of memory reassembled themselves. Maybe she _was_ the real thing. Gideon had said that she would get help, and perhaps this was how she had done it.

“Sara? Oh god, Sara!” He crawled across the floor to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that I could do that.”

Sara groaned, and slowly moved herself into a sitting position. “At least you remember who I am now. And if you can do that to me, then you can get the door open.”

“I don’t think I can. I’ve been trying. I don’t really understand it, but possibly Thawne’s tampering means that I can’t get myself out of here,” said Rip.

Memories were flooding into his mind, images of Sara as she dealt with threats, as she ate in the galley, as she piloted the ship, and as she talked to him on the bridge. He shook his head to try to clear his mind.

“What’s wrong? Is it coming back?”

“A little,” he said, and winced as he moved too quickly. “Did you shoot me?”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” replied Sara, with a slight smile.

“Er, yes, I suppose it is,” he said. “You have no idea how pleased I am to see the real you.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s been much fun being trapped in here,” said Sara. “You felt the gunshot wound?”

He gave a single dip of his head, not wishing to make her feel more guilty than she already probably did.

“It was the right thing to do,” he said. “You couldn’t let me get away with the Spear. No doubt I have a lot to make up for to the crew.”

“No, that wasn’t you,” said Sara. “But we do need to get you out of here so that we can find the other pieces of the Spear. Do you remember what you did with them?”

Rip thought hard. “I tasked three members of the JSA with their guardianship, but I don’t remember more than that. This place seems to be stopping me from remembering things. I was worried that I was going to completely lose myself…”

“That’s not going to happen. We’re here now, and we’re taking you home,” said Sara, getting to her feet. She offered Rip a hand up, and after only a moment’s hesitation he took it.

Jax and Gideon came dashing into the brig a second later, and Jax was able to open the door from the outside just as he would have on the real Waverider. Rip only had one thing in mind as the doors opened and that was to hug Gideon. She had been here with him, keeping him sane all this time, and he was more than grateful. He ignored the looks that Sara and Jax were probably giving him.

The four of them moved out into the corridors.

“Your mind is a real trip,” said Jax. “Did you know that you’ve got Vandal Savage’s troops running around in here?”

“Er, no,” he said.

“Normally, the Captain’s mind is much quieter and more well-ordered,” said Gideon. “Eobard Thawne’s corruption is responsible for this state of affairs.”

“I suppose that’s reassuring,” said Rip. “I wish I could remember more.”

“You will remember who you are, and then we’ll be able to get you out,” said Sara, reassuringly.

The group rounded a corner and were faced with doppelgangers of Sara and Jax. Rip backed away, out of pure fear response. These people had played with his mind, hurt him and told him that he was worthless. He knew that all to be lies now, but it was all very fresh in his mind and he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. Gideon was there with him though, and Sara and Jax moved quickly in front of him, so that they were between him and the threat. He felt warmth spread through him at the idea that he had people who would protect him.

“Rip knows who he is,” said the corrupted version of Jax. “He’s our prisoner. Isn’t that right, Rip?”

And there was the fear again, the need to make himself small and get away. He was also ashamed. He’d been trapped in his own mind, and unable to defend himself. He should have done better and fought harder. He should have been able to defeat his demons and free himself.

“No, Rip’s our friend and he’s coming with us,” said Jax, and he glanced back at Rip. “We’ll deal with these guys. Gideon, look after Rip.”

“Always,” said Gideon.

“We’ll meet you on the bridge,” said Sara.

“What are you planning on doing?” asked Rip.

“I guess we’re going to have to kick out own asses,” said Sara, with a smile.

Rip just had time to see the start of the fight, before Gideon pulled him away, and the two of them dashed down the corridor. They stepped onto the bridge and moved into the parlour.

“Perhaps your things will jog your memory enough that you can regain control,” said Gideon.

Rip looked around him. He knew this place, but it felt foreign to him. He walked towards one of the many shelves and reached out to brush his fingers across a white mask with a large red circle on it. It felt familiar, and there was a face to go with it… an Asian woman, but nothing more than that. The memory faded quickly. He moved on to a “Wanted” poster, but whilst the reaction was stronger, he still couldn’t hold the image in his head for long.

“I don’t think this is working, Gideon.”

“Keep trying,” replied Gideon, gently.

He heard the sound of footsteps, running onto the bridge and Sara and Jax reappeared. Rip stepped out of the parlour to meet them, but suddenly recoiled from the sight in front of him, taking a half pace back and nearly tripping over the step behind him. Two people who had not been there before now stood on the bridge, appearing out of the mists as if conjured from thin air.

“Rip?” asked a familiar voice. A woman with dark hair and dark eyes stood in front of him, and with her was a small boy. Miranda and Jonas. His wife and son. They stood on the Waverider, exactly as he remembered them when he’d last seen them.

“No,” he said, with horror, “you’re dead. I held you in my arms.”

Jax looked baffled for a moment, he’d never seen their faces, but Sara and Gideon immediately understood his reaction, and were looking quite horrified as they moved to stand beside him.

“Oh Rip, always the failure,” said Miranda. “You couldn’t save us and you can’t save yourself. You might as well go back to the brig now. You’re never getting out of here. Come to me and I’ll lead you back to where you need to be. I’ll even stay with you. Imagine that, we could all be together forever in here.”

He hung his head. She was right about everything. He was a failure, and the temptation to just stay here with his wife and child was huge. He wanted more than anything to see them again, to hold them again in his arms, and just be with them. He took a step towards them.

He felt Gideon put a hand on his arm. “They’re not real, Captain.”

“They are to me,” said Rip.

“Would you really want that?” asked Sara. “You’d be trapped in a lie, never able to move on.”

“It would be better than the grief and pain of losing them!” he snapped back.

“You don’t really believe that,” said Gideon. “You have a life outside of this place and it is waiting for you to reclaim it.”

“Dude, you know they wouldn’t have wanted you to be stuck here forever,” added Jax.

“Rip, come to me,” said Miranda, raising her arms for him to hug her. “Don’t listen to them. We’re your family and you love us.”

Jonas was holding out his arms too now.

And Rip looked away, because his friends were right. The real Miranda and Jonas would have wanted him to have a life and to live it to the full. Gideon’s hand was still on his arm and it anchored him to reality. Although perhaps not quite reality yet, but it felt more real that the dead wife and son in front of him.

Tears swept into his eyes without being requested, and they fell down his face in rivulets of pure agony. He turned back to the woman and child, the Miranda and Jonas that were once his, that had been alive and breathing. These were just an image, an echo of a memory, twisted by Thawne to do his bidding and keep Rip in check.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted, and the figures were sent backwards and into infinity, back to the corner of his mind where their memory lived, untainted.

Gideon squeezed his arm gently, in a gesture of affection that he didn’t even know she could understand. Then she moved in to hug him properly. He felt Sara put a hand on his shoulder, and he heard Jax’s murmured “it’s okay”, and he was reassured. His family were gone but not forgotten, they never would be, and now he had a new family to be a part of. He had a family who had put themselves in danger to rescue him.

And then someone was clapping, with the kind of long slow claps that indicated sarcasm.

“Good work! Dispatch the nagging wife and mewling child,” said his evil self.

Rip rubbed at the tears on his face, disengaged from Gideon’s arms, and straightened to his full height, the gunshot wound twinging once again. He would not give his other self the satisfaction of seeing him cry or allowing him to know that he was anything but ready to face him.

“I think you’ll find that I’m rather more difficult to deal with,” said the man in black, with a scornful look.

Rip took a step forwards towards his alter ego, and the entire ship shook. The movement nearly knocked them all to the ground, but Rip stood firm, and the others managed to keep their feet too. Something on the bridge sparked.

“The construct is collapsing now that Rip has started to defeat the tainted memories that were keeping him locked in here,” said Gideon. “You should go.” She looked at Sara and Jax.

“I’ll be fine,” Rip said to his friends. “Gideon’s right, you need to leave, and I need to defeat my demons alone. Thank you for believing in me, even when I didn’t myself.”

Jax and Sara exchanged a look.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to come back in if we leave now,” said Jax. “You’ll be on your own with that guy.”

“And I lost my bracelet,” said Sara, showing them her wrist.

“The bracelet provides an electric shock. If you hold hands, you should both receive the shock,” said Gideon.

“Okay,” said Sara, taking the hand that Jax offered her. “But if this doesn’t work, you and Martin will need to find a new way to get me out.”

“It’ll work,” said Jax. He pressed the button on his wrist with his free hand, and the two disappeared.

“You too, Gideon,” said Rip.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Captain,” said Gideon.

Rip took Gideon’s hands in his. “I will be fine, but I need to do this alone.”

He leaned in, and he intended to hug his best friend, but at the last moment he realised that he didn’t want to hug her. He wanted to kiss her, so he did. It was everything that he’d imagined a kiss with Gideon might be, soft and warm, and deep with longing.

And Gideon disappeared in his arms, swept away by a force that he recognised. The other him had sent her away.

Rip turned back to his other self, with anger, and the two men looked at each other, eyes locked.

“What was the point of that?”

“Gideon was becoming a distraction, and we have a lot to discuss,” said his darker self.

He sized himself up, and shook off his annoyance. “Where were we?”

“I believe we were fighting for control of you mind.”

“Such as it is, at the moment,” replied Rip, with a glance towards a shower of sparks. “I think it’s time that you left.”

“That would be hard when I’m part of you. I know you don’t want to believe that, but I have always been here and you need me. I am the part of you that makes the hard decisions, that decides to cut his losses for the greater good, and keeps you alive. I am what you would be without your snivelling compassion, your ridiculous need to protect others, your righteous indignation…” The man in black walked around him, circling him like a hungry wolf, but Rip was undeterred.

“And you are everything that proves that I need those things!”

His other self gave him a disdainful look. “Really? I accomplished so much more without your annoying emotions to hold me back. I took down the Waverider and its entire crew. I had the piece of the Spear of Destiny in my hand…”

“But you still failed,” said Rip, triumphantly.

“Only because one of your so-called friends decided to risk my life and shoot me in the back!”

“Entirely the right call. The safety of reality is worth more than my life,” replied Rip.

“And I suppose you’d have shot her in the back if your positions were reversed?”

He hesitated, but nodded. “I would know that the medbay could treat her, so yes, I would have.”

His other half laughed at him. “Liar. You’re too weak to make that kind of call. You don’t have it in you.”

“Really? You know the missions that I have been on to maintain the timeline…”

“That _we_ have been on. When I was still part of you.” He pointed at himself. “And yet, you couldn’t kill Vandal Savage when you had the chance!” the other shouted, angrily.

“And yet, he is now dead!” Rip shouted back. “And I did kill him! I twisted the knife in his chest!”

“Be careful, when you stare into the abyss…”

“I stared into the abyss and I decided not to let it consume me,” said Rip. “You cannot play that card and then complain that I channelled my anger when required. I am either weak because of my emotions or I am not.”

“But you forget that I’m you, and I know how much you want to give up, and go to join Miranda and Jonas. I know how the death wish eats at you, the hopelessness, the grief, and how you fight against it every day. Why don’t you just give in to it and let me have control? The love your felt for them, it tears you apart. Why would you want to go back to that?”

“Because I don’t want to forget them! And I’m not ready to die, or to let you have control,” he shot back. “I have things to live for, and I cannot let you destroy them just so that I can stop feeling that pain.” He took a step closer to his evil self. “And I need that pain because it reminds me what I’m fighting for. There are millions of other families, just like my own, our own, who deserve to have a chance to write their own destinies. My grief is part of who I am, and I hope that it makes me a better man.”

He looked his alternate self in the eye, and held out a hand.

“The sad truth is that we need each other. I can’t live without your ability to keep my emotions at arm’s length, and you can’t abandon your feelings entirely. Without them you’re a monster, and without your control, I couldn’t continue. I know that you want to feel again. I could see it in you when you hurt Sara. You were desperate to experience any emotion, even one that was as terrible as grief…”

For the first time the other version of himself seemed to stop and consider his words, and then he nodded.

“I felt nothing with her neck under my hand, and I don’t understand why I should want to, but you are right, something is missing. I’m half a person. I’m without part of the human condition, and as strange as it is, apparently Eobard Thawne couldn’t remove my desire to have emotions, even if he could remove the finer feelings. All I have left is anger, and even that is muted, a pale shadow of itself.”

His mirror image took his hand.

“Let’s end this then,” said Rip.

“Agreed. For better or worse, we will be together.” The evil version took a step towards him and faded into smoke, swirling around him and then into him. His body absorbed the spirit of the personality that had been in control of his body, and suddenly Rip felt more like himself again.

The bridge of the Waverider faded around him, the green mist taking up his visual field until that was all he could see. Rip felt himself suspended in space, and consciousness faded into a lower level, so that he was no longer aware, until blackness claimed him completely.

He awoke again with a start, sucking in air like a dying fish on land, his eyes unfocused.

“Rip! Rip! It’s okay!” said a voice. He immediately recognised it as Sara, and he willed his eyes to make sense of the image in front of him.

He could see three people: Sara, Jax and Martin. A soft hand rested on his, and he looked down to see Sara’s smaller hand on top of his own. Both rested on the arm of a chair.

“Where am I?” he asked, still somewhat confused.

“Home,” said Martin. “You’re home, Captain.”

Rip let out a sigh, and a half laugh of relief. After everything, here he was, back on the Waverider.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“Dude, we weren’t going to leave you trapped in your own head. I guess you got rid of Evil Rip?”

Rip blinked. His head was beginning to protest at its recent treatment.

“I wish that I could have, but no, I can’t deny that I have darker aspects to my personality. We came to an understanding, and he is back where he belongs, firmly under control,” said Rip, and raised a hand to his head. “But we must get to the pieces of the Spear before Eobard Thawne. There are three very brave people who have been guarding them and they will need our help.”

“It can wait, Rip,” said Sara. “We have a time machine, and you look exhausted.”

“Scans indicate that Captain Hunter is experiencing the usual symptoms of post cognitive intrusion,” said Gideon. “He should rest, and I will fabricate some appropriate painkillers.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” said Rip. “I am tired. Would it be alright if I did that resting in my quarters? Unless you wish to return me to the brig for a period? I would understand if you wanted to take precautions until you can be sure that I’m back in my right mind.”

Sara was already shaking her head. “No, your quarters will be fine. Everything else can wait until you’ve had some sleep.”

Rip attempted to push himself up from the chair that he was in, but his strength failed him, and he would have slipped backwards if not for the strong arms of Martin and Jax. A twinge of pain in his back reminded him of the healing wound and he winced. At least the pain was real now, and not transferred to him via a nightmare.

“Woah there,” said Jax. “Yeah, you definitely need to go lie down for a while.”

“Indeed,” said Rip, and he couldn’t come up with anything more helpful.

The rest happened in a blur. Jax and Martin took a side each and assisted him in walking back to his quarters. He divested himself of the black garments that his other self had favoured and crawled into bed, with a little help from his attendees. He didn’t even care that they were seeing him in his underwear, he just wanted to be free of the black clothes and to get some sleep. Jax made a small detour to get the painkillers that Gideon had fabricated and water for him to take them with. Then they left him to his rest.

He fell asleep quickly. Cognitive Intrusion was an intensive process and Jax and Sara would also want rest before they returned to duty. He hoped that Sara allowed herself that, being the one in charge often meant denying oneself the basics in order to tend to duty first.

Gideon waited for him in his dreams, standing guard to make sure that none of them became nightmares, but his mind was once more his own. Any demons he found there were also his own and familiar, but even those Gideon protected him from this time.

“Gideon…” he breathed, with relief.

“I’m here, Captain.”

“You always are.”

They stood on the bridge of a restored Waverider, with everything back in its place and blue skies outside the cockpit window. He took a step towards her.

“I did enjoy our kiss,” she said, and smiled.

“As did I. You’re not just a dream, are you?”

She shook her head. “This is a manifestation of my consciousness. I hope you don’t mind the visit, I wanted to ensure you dreamed well tonight. You need the rest.”

He looked down at his feet. “Of course I don’t mind. Was that the only reason for your visit?” He met her eyes again, a hopeful look on his face.

She gave him a knowing smile, and a shake of her head. He closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around the avatar of his AI. This time there was no one to interrupt their kiss.

In the real world, Rip smiled in his sleep, letting out a long sigh of contentment.


End file.
